Voucher Study: Transfers to MPS Muddle Results

Test scores are the same after years of study

At the same time Gov. Scott Walker has expanded the voucher program beyond the city of Milwaukee's borders, yet another study of test scores has concluded that students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) do not perform better than students who attend the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS).

What is new is that the nonpartisan state Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) is concerned about the validity of the results of the privately funded School Choice Demonstration Project based at the University of Arkansas.

The five-year study—bankrolled by various foundations, including the voucher-supporting Bradley and Walton family organizations—paired students in both school systems so that they matched demographically. The researchers then attempted to follow the matched students for five years to see if there was any change in their performance. The final year of the study will conclude in 2012 with the analysis of the 2010-2011 test data. The Arkansas researchers release general data about student achievement without identifying the performance of individual schools.

The LAB's review confirmed what we already knew: that there's a high rate of transfers from voucher schools back to MPS and elsewhere.

The problem is that the rate of transfers out of voucher schools is so high that it threatens the study itself, the LAB claimed, since there aren't enough kids to match up.

Only 41.3% of the 2,727 choice pupils in the researchers' sample remained in the choice schools in the 2009-2010 school year.

In contrast, 71.6% of MPS students in the sample stayed put in MPS during the past four years.

The LAB found that 32.8% of students in the voucher sample transferred to MPS, while only 6.8% of MPS students transferred to a voucher school during the same period.

So even though parents of voucher students had to be involved enough with their children's education to take the extra step of signing up their child to attend a non-MPS school, those same parents and students are far more likely to transfer back to MPS once they've had their “choice” experience.

The LAB wrote that the high rate of transfers makes it difficult for researchers to determine whether a student's performance can be chalked up to what he or she learned at a voucher school, or whether it's due to what the student learned at MPS.

The LAB wrote that its results varied a bit from the original researchers' results because the Arkansas team “used statistical techniques to attempt to compensate for missing test score data.” The Arkansas researchers didn't provide the LAB with more detailed information on how they came up with their test scores.

The Arkansas researchers noted that there was a “negative relationship between student achievement growth and both school switching and student retention. However, the introduction of these variables does not change the substantive conclusion of no difference in achievement growth between MPS and MPCP students.”

Still, the Arkansas researchers are holding out hope that the voucher students will make great gains in student achievement.

“While presently we conclude that in general there is no significant difference between MPS students and MPCP students as measured by three years of achievement, this result may change in future analyses,” their March 2011 report states.

This sounds like a bunch of crap. Who cares what these researchers came up with? Test scores can be skewed to make either side look good or bad. What I would do is see the college graduation rates of voucher or MPS students and incarceration rates of the various students. I would bet voucher grads don't go to prison as much and more likely go to college. The bottom line is this is what taxpayers want. Increasing MPS enrollment just makes their system bigger and therefore a bigger waste of taxpayer money. Private school teachers work for a more cost effective salary. We can educate students in the private schools at much lower costs and have similar results. Even with Scot Walkers improvements in school funding, public school teacher are still making much higher salaries compared to the good private school teachers.

Who cares if the test scores in the private schools are better? What is important is I kept my children out of the moral cesspool that is MPS. Do you not see the trend when people move to the suburbs? Milwaukee has degenerated into a morass of crime, inbreeding and degeneracy. Every child we save from MPS is a victory.

Apparently, too many people listen to sound bites instead of understand what is really going on with MPS vs Charter/Private schools. First, you have to have experience and involvement in both types of schools to comment. I personally removed my children from Charter school to MPS. I was so impressed with my decision. On the first day of class, it was all business. The children had books from every subject on their desks and to work they went. Charter and Private schools differ because Charter schools receive taxpayer money without having standards and accountablity a) No books, b) teachers can be uneducation, c) they do not provide children with any other curriculum. Such as gym, music, or arts.. Children need some of those things. Any joe blow can open a charter school and pocket our TAXPAYERS money without regulation. Many Lutheran and Catholic schools have only survived because they are excepting voucher eliigible children. I do not understand why all of a sudden people are using the term (taxpayers) as part of their policial ideas.. MPS does a great job at accommodating every type of child: Disabilities, Physical or developemental - cognative, ADHD, ADD, so on. None of the other types of schools take care of our children the way MPS does. I would say your taxpayer money is not being wasted. Also, I am a product of MPS with a BA in Administration. Do you have a degree in something other than BS?

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